Ronnie Finn received the Albert Lasker award (often known as the American Nobel prize in medicine) in 1980 for his contribution to the development of an effective treatment for Rhesus haemolytic disease. The resulting anti-Rh(D) injection, which is given to thousands of women worldwide every year, is estimated to have saved some half a million lives to date.

The book Rh; The Intimate History of a Disease and its Conquest by David R Zimmerman was published in 1973 it describes the history of this disease, first defined 40 years earlier and which is now preventable.

Friday, 8 July 2011

The book is an explanation of the 'Ba Gua' used in the Yi-ching (I Ching or Classic of Changes, also known as the Book of Divination). According to this Chinese world view, the universe is run by a single principle, the Tao, or Great Ultimate. This principle is divided into two opposite principles--yin and yang. All phenomena can be understood using yin-yang and five associated agents, which affect the movements of the stars, the workings of the body, the nature of foods, the qualities of music, the ethical qualities of humans, the progress of time, the operations of government, and even the nature of historical change.